Robin Ann Dalton AM ( Eakin; 22 December 1920 – 8 July 2022) was an Australian literary agent, film producer and memoirist who lived in London for most of her adult life. She was also a journalist, television performer and intelligence agent.

Life and career

Robin Ann Eakin was born in 1920 in Sydney, an only child, and grew up in

Kings Cross, New South Wales Kings Cross is an inner-city locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney. It is bounded by the subu ...

. Her father was a doctor whose clientele included elements of the Sydney underworld as well as more respectable members of society.Text Publishing
Retrieved 7 December 2018Former spy Robin Dalton: "I feel sorry for young women today. There's very little romance", Elizabeth Grice, ''The Telegraph'', 14 May 2016
Retrieved 7 December 2018 She was frequently in the social pages of Sydney newspapers in her late teens.Helen Trinca, "Author, literary agent, filmmaker Robin Dalton has lived life to full", ''Weekend Australian'', 20-21 May 2017
Retrieved 7 December 2018 A 1940 marriage to a barrister named John Spencer did not last more than a few months, as he divorced her on the grounds of adultery. In 1946, she flew to London. While in Australia she had met

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's cousin and best man at his wedding to Princess Elizabeth, and in London their affair continued, but they were prevented from marrying by her status as a divorcee.Jane Wheatley, "How Sydney socialite and film producer Robin Dalton stole the headlines from WWII", ''Sydney Morning Herald'', 3 March 2017
Retrieved 7 December 2018 She entered high society and met numerous international celebrities, which led to her doing espionage work for the Thai Government. She then met an Irish doctor named Emmet Dalton, whom she married in 1953. They had two children, Lisa and Seamus, but Emmet died suddenly at age 33 during heart surgery. In 1963 she started a life with Bill Fairchild, who became her third husband in 1992 and died in 2000. Robin Dalton became a literary agent, acting for writers such as

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and

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; and film makers such as

Laurence Olivier Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage o ...

Louis Malle Louis Marie Malle (; 30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. Described as "eclectic" and "a filmmaker difficult to pin down," Malle's filmog ...

and

Peter Weir Peter Lindsay Weir ( ; born August 21, 1944) is a retired Australian film director. He's known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such as '' Picnic at Hanging Rock'' (1975), '' Gallipoli'' (1981), ''Witnes ...

. She produced such films as '' Emma's War'' (1987), ''

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'' (1988), '' Country Life'' (1994) and ''

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'' (1997).

Honours

She was appointed a

Member of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian ...

(AM) in 2013, "for significant service to the film industry as a producer, literary agent and author, and as a mentor to emerging actors and writers".It's an Honour
Retrieved 7 December 2018

Bibliography

Memoirs

* ''Aunts Up the Cross'' (1965) * ''An Incidental Memoir'' (1998) * ''One Leg Over'' (2017)

Fiction

* ''My Relations'' (written at age 8, published in 2015, aged 94)

References